Crisis in the health service: a legacy of Charlie Haughey

Wednesday June 14, 2006 16:44

by Rory Hearne - People Before Profit Alliance

Crisis in the health service: a legacy of Charlie Haughey

Even Mary Harney admitted recently that the health service is in crisis. At the heart of it is, what the Health Strategy in 2001 stated, the bed capacity crisis and the urgent need to put back 3000 public hospital beds.

Crisis in the health service: a legacy of Charlie Haughey

Even Mary Harney admitted recently that the health service is in crisis. At the heart of it is, what the Health Strategy in 2001 stated, the bed capacity crisis and the urgent need to put back 3000 public hospital beds.
The current government’s solution is, however, not to invest public money in putting those beds in public hospitals or to invest in the health staff to operate them but instead to provide private beds in for-profit hospitals run by multinationals e.g. the American multinational Triad will run the new Beacon Clinic in Sandyford in Dublin. For-profit hospitals will be given massive state handouts of billions in tax breaks and public land and will not give full services, only cherry picking straight-forward elective surgical cases. They are giving us the unequal and ineffective USA health model.
They also refuse to give the pay rise that nurses are demanding and as a result the INO felt it necessary to hold a rally in DCU. People Before Profit will be there to support them. Ensuring staff have proper conditions is essential to ensure we have a world-class health service. Implementation of the nurses’ demands for a 35-hour week and pay rise are vital to retain nurses and keep standards of care at a safe level.
The origins of today’s capacity crisis in our hospitals can be traced back to the 1980s when Charlie Haughey’s government cut 2000 beds. While many claim he did great things, this legacy that has undoubtedly left many to die on trolleys in A& E units cannot be ignored at this time. The Thatcherite belief underlying that decision was the idea that public services should not be funded properly and the private sector should be promoted instead. ‘Comrade’ Bertie in government has faithfully continued this policy of the ‘Boss’. Our public services are still massively underfunded today, despite a budget surplus, while the private sector is being given public services through Public Private Partnerships and outsourcing. A very different philosophy from that of Haughey or Ahern is required urgently, one that delivers public services according to public needs and not private profits.
Rory Hearne
PRO People Before Profit Alliance